Don't Trip

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival

Winston Churchill spoke these words to the House of Commons of the British Parliament May 13th, 1940. He was informing them of a restructuring of government that was taking place because of World War II’s onset. The speech is considered to be among Churchill’s most important and effective speeches, and he gave it to prepare his people and the world that was listening for the massive and daunting task that was ahead of them. Why was Churchill so fervent and blunt in this message that promised both struggle and suffering? Because he knew that no victory worth winning ever comes without them.

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, and turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 16. That’s John 16. And while you’re finding your place, let me just remind you that we’ve been talking about love and hate. We camped out in John 15:9-17 for two weeks as we talked about love as THE DEFINING characteristic in the life of a Christian. We talked about the fact that the love that we have for God and for others is actually rooted in our Creator’s love for us. We discussed Christ’s command to love the Lord, our God with everything that we are and that our love for God equates to obedience. Then, we focused in on loving one another as the primary expression of our obedience and love of God.

And, finally, last week we talked about the hatred that this world feels and expresses towards those that are in Christ; that those who hate Christ also hate His followers; that judgment and suffering is what awaits them in the life to come, and that those who follow Christ should expect their hatred and prepare ourselves for it so that we can continue to return love where we are hated, in the prayer that God will use us as Christ’s witnesses to them, even as He promised to do.

And so, as we return to the Scriptures this morning, we are going to pick up right where we left off. This morning we’re going to be starting in John 16, beginning in verse 1, and as is our custom here at Friendship, I invite everyone that is able, whether here or at home, to stand with me now as we honor the Lord at the reading of His Word:

John 16:1–4 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer together: Lord, Jesus, we come to You this morning with eyes and ears open and hearts ready to receive what You would teach us. Holy Spirit, would You come and be among your children this morning. As we open up Your Word, would You use it to teach us things that we do not, and show us through it ways that You would change us so that we can live our lives according to your purposes and not our own. We long to glorify You with all that we are. Lord, would You move us closer to that purpose through our time together as Your church this morning? In Jesus’ Name we pray, amen.

I recently began breaking in a new pair of running shoes. And while I liked them from the time I first tried them on, it took me a while to prepare myself to break them in, because doing so means suffering. I’ve never gotten a new pair of running shoes where I didn’t get at least one blister the first week or so of using them. They are great shoes, they just fit different than the last ones, and so I have to suffer through the blisters if I want to keep running.

Now, Bethany would tell you that I love running. However, I see it differently. I’d say that I’m addicted to running. I don’t care how young or old you are, we live in Florida. No one likes feeling like they are breathing in an oven. No one likes feeling out of breath, sore muscles, aching blisters, and sweat soaked clothes. No one likes being the only one crawling out of the nice, warm bed to go pound the pavement when it is blistering hot, immeasurably humid, pouring down rain, or freezing cold. And no, those things are not always the case, but they most definitely happen.

No I don’t love running- I love the way that running makes me feel. I love the feeling after the run, when my whole body is relaxed, when I beat my goal time or distance. I love my after-run shower and recovery. I love the energy it brings to my day and the released endorphin makes me feel. And knowing what awaits me after my run is what drives me to endure the parts of it that are suffering.

No one likes suffering. In this life, most of us do our best to avoid it. Suffering is why grown adults avoid going to see the doctor. Suffering is why we dread going to the dentist! Don’t you love how they ask if anything hurts? “Well, nothing hurt before I came in here, now everything does. Thanks! How much do I owe you?”

Because of suffering, we avoid taxes, exercise, dieting, medical procedures and tests. No one goes to sign up for a colonoscopy, mammogram, prostate exam, or blood draw unless they have no other choice.`

When I was a small child, I had to have my tonsils removed. And when the doctor told me what was involved, all that they told me was that I was going into the hospital, that I was going to take a nap while they fixed some things, and that afterwards I could eat all of the ice cream I wanted. I was on cloud nine! You would have thought I had won tickets to Disney World. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I didn’t really care to eat that ice cream! Nobody likes suffering. No one just signs up for suffering.

In fact, as a leader, I can tell you that telling people they are going to suffer isn’t the greatest sign-up incentive in the world. All you need to do is look at our trips to Mexico. Forget the trials and the sufferings that the body of Christ has actually endured, and just mention to most folks that this trip will involve probably 7-10 days of sleeping in a tent with rudimentary bathroom and shower facilities and limited access to electricity with no internet or cell signal and all of the sudden your short sign-ups go to no sign-ups.

Nobody likes suffering, and the sad thing is, is that we equate what I just described as suffering. We equate medical exams and procedures as suffering. We think that exercise and taxes and healthy eating is suffering. And I’m afraid that we don’t really understand what suffering really is. When we started off this morning, I read to you a war-time quote of Winston Churchill that came at the very beginning of World War II. At that time, they had only been at war about 8 months. Those 9 months likely seemed an eternity to them at that point, and yet that speech came a year and 7 months before the United States even entered the war. It came 5 days short of 5 years before the war in Europe would end. And Churchill was trying to prepare his people for the fight, because some things are worth suffering for.

In verse 1 of chapter 16, Jesus said

John 16:1 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.

What’s He saying? He’s saying, “I’ve told you these things to prepare you. I’ve told you these things to make you ready. I’ve told you these things so that when they happen, you won’t trip! Don’t trip over them! Don’t, trip, beloved.

We stand, right now, on the edge of treacherous days for the church of the Living God. If you don’t see the draw strings pulling and the net beginning to close, it’s because you aren’t paying attention. Don’t trip, children of the One True King. Don’t trip! Jesus didn’t tell His disciples these things to scare them off. He told them so they would know what to expect. So that they wouldn’t be surprised when the world hates them and reviles them because of the Name of Jesus. Don’t trip. And if you’ve got your listening guide with you this morning, I invite you to open it up or get it out, and the first thing you are going to see is this:

Persecution will knock down the believer who has not resolved to stand

Why do I say this? I say it because resolve takes awareness. Resolve takes forethought and preparation. Resolve is a decision that you make, before you are standing in the midst of the fire, that you will not be moved or persuaded, come what may.

Does resolve mean that you won’t fall? Does resolve mean that you won’t stumble? No, it doesn’t. But you surely will fall without it. You see, resolve requires you to count the costs. Christian, you must count the cost of following Jesus. You have to decide in your heart of hearts what Jesus is worth to you. You need to know just what you’d be willing to sacrifice for Christ, not just philosophically, but actually. In last week’s text, Jesus told us that the world was going to hate us as His followers.

That much should be evident in the world around us today. We shouldn’t wonder when we see it, because Jesus tells us it is going to happen. People in the world around us are going to target Christians. They lost and dying that hate us are going to target churches. They are going to mock our kids in school.Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe your kids are small and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe you home school and it won’t catch up to them until college or trade school, but make no mistake, it will happen. If you aren’t preparing your kids to be singled out and ridiculed for Christ, you need to.

You and I who are adult Christians today, we are an anomaly. We have lived most of our adult lives to this point without much pressure from persecution. Yet, you’ve faced it and not even realized it was happening right in front of you, to you. When others tell you that you can’t talk about Jesus to others at your work, that’s persecution. It may be legal persecution, but it is a contradiction of the command of your Savior that told you to make disciples everywhere you go.

When people tell you that it’s okay if you believe that, you just can’t bother others with it, that’s persecution. It’s mild, and nothing much has happened because of it, but worse things are coming, and we need to be ready. And Jesus wants us to understand a few things this morning, and He wants us to count the costs so that we’ll be ready. Look at verse 3 with me:

John 16:3 NASB95

“These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.

There are three things that Jesus asks us to understand about persecution in this passage, and the first one is this:

Persecution comes at the hands of the lost

A rotten tree cannot help but to produce rotten fruit. It seems obvious, but we need to remember this, because sometimes we look at the world around us and we’re bewildered at the things they do and say that are antagonistic and hateful towards Christians. We’re somehow surprised that things are only getting worse. But really, how else would we expect things to go when they don’t know Jesus? They are dead in their transgressions. They are lost without hope.

And I want to be clear: this is not an excuse. The lost are still accountable before God for the way that they treat His children. They are still accountable for their sins and will be judged for them. But this knowledge should bring us to two points of application in our day to day lives. First, this should

Give us compassion for those that wrong us

Knowing that those that persecute us, that bring us suffering because of our love for Christ, can only do so if they are lost, that should give us compassion for those that wrong us because we know of their eternal danger of judgment and condemnation. We know what awaits them if they don’t come to surrender and faith in Jesus Christ.

This doesn’t take away the pain of persecution. It doesn’t take away the burden and the sting of it, but it should help us to return their hatred with love, not because it is what they deserve, but because Christ gave to us what we don’t deserve. Secondly,knowing that persecution comes at the hands of the lost should

Give us corrected expectations

You and I are American citizens. We are born and raised with the idea that we have rights. Many men and women have died to defend and protect those rights for us, and we remember them today. But sometimes this mindset of our rights fogs our eyes to the truth. We start to think of our rights as Americans as though somehow these supersede our position as children of the living God. Something happens and we get one of our rights stepped on, and we think “that’s not fair! That’s not right! This is America. You can’t do that to me!

And we forget that rotten trees produce rotten fruit always and forever. Let me say that again. Rotten trees produce rotten fruit always and forever. And if you want that tree to produce good fruit, it has to be born again. It has to become a different tree altogether, and the only way that is going to happen is if you love them to Jesus.

We need to correct our expectations friends. The world around us acts the way that they do because they don’t know Jesus, and if you and I can learn to expect to be treated badly because we know Jesus and they don’t, what this will mean for us in the end is that we are a whole lot more likely to respond in a Christ-like manner to their persecution because we expected it. Look at verse 4 with me:

John 16:4 NASB95

“But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

Two of the three things we need to understand about persecution are in this verse, so the second thing is this: that

Persecution affirms the Deity of Christ

Jesus told us that we would suffer for His Name, and when we look at the history of the church, it is the truth. In fact, it is those of us that have lived in a day and age without much suffering that are the odd ones out in church history. Most of the Christians that have every lived have done so in the midst of suffering.

Tertullian, a 2nd century pastor considered to be one of the early church fathers once said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” meaning that where the blood of Christians is shed in the name of Christ, the church sees the tremendous growth of new fruit.

Why would Jesus say these things? He said them because they are true. He said them so that we could be ready. He said them so that when they happen, we can be reminded that He told us that they would happen, and our faith would be strengthened.

It is really quite ironic. Those who persecute Christians do so to discourage us. They wish to fill our heads with doubt and to tear us away from our faith. After all, why would we cling to our precious God when we have so much to lose for doing so. And yet, when we understand that persecution comes at the hands of the Lost and we remember that Jesus told us it would happen, the application this leads us to is that

We can face suffering with confidence that Christ is King

For if Christ’s promises are true, we have far more to gain than we could ever lose. The riches of Christ’s eternal Kingdom far outweigh the tarnished rubble of this failing and fading world of brokenness and death. Jesus is who He says He is. And though none of us wishes to endure suffering, when we see the truth of the things He told us in the persecution we endure, we can have confidence through them that we are on the right course.

This leads us to the third thing that we need to understand about persecution. Look at verse 4 one more time

John 16:4 NASB95

“But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

The third thing that we need to understand about persecution is this:

Persecution of Christians is the persecution of Christ in you

Jesus’ disciples didn’t have to worry about persecution while Jesus was with them. Why? Because Jesus was with them. Jesus Himself was the object of their hatred. Jesus Himself was the victim of their schemes. So why is Jesus warning the disciples here in John 16 of the persecution that would come to them? Because Jesus knew that He was going to the Father. And when Jesus went to the Father, the hatred of the world turned on what of Christ was in the world.

Why have I been so careful to emphasize this to you here and now? Because, beloved, you and I are that of Christ that is in the world.

Acts 11:26 NASB95

and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

The word Christian means little Christ. You and I, if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, are little Christs to the world around us. C.S. Lewis wrote this:

“The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose.”

You and I exist to be disciples and to make disciples. We exist to know Jesus fully and utterly and to make Him known to all of creation. We exist to be little Christs to the world around us and to make little Christs of others. And the persecution that you and I endure now, is of little consequence because, quite frankly, we have endured so little of it. But the reason that we must understand these things, the reason that we must expect persecution, and we must set ourselves in resolve to stand as we count the costs is that the persecution will come. Our hour of suffering is nearly upon us, and the question that each man must ask himself is what He is willing to suffer: Look at verse 2 again with me:

John 16:2 NASB95

“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

This one singular verse gives us two stark expectations in Christ, and both of them are born out of this one truth:

Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life

Following Jesus will bring you to persecution. Church, we will be called upon to suffer for Jesus. Jesus told the apostles they would be cast out of the synagogues, that they would be ostracized from general society, even from among those that would call themselves religious. Should we expect anything different?

Look with eyes wide-open, church! How many of those churches that claim to be evangelical, with High Church Historical relevance even among protestant churches, how many of them have caved to the weight of societal pressure calling wrong right and right wrong. How many have denied the inerrancy of Scripture? How many are now flying multi-colored flags of men to make a socio-political statement that seems more important to them than the Gospel?

Look and see that this is nothing new! Study church history, the reformation and beyond. Look all the way back to the days of Christ, and realize that those who have stood by the ardent truth of Christ’s teachings have always suffered for it.

Look and see that even during the reformation, that some protestants martyred our Baptist brethren because they had the audacity to suggest that infant Baptism was not Believer’s Baptism. Where do you think the term “believer’s baptism” comes from?

Yes, it is true that Jesus will change everything about your life. He will constantly challenge you, shape you, remake you, chisel you, and fashion you until you most fully reflect Him. But He will also cost you life itself. He will also cost you social position, monetary gain, wealth, power, and notoriety, but Jesus may cost you your physical life, and those that are religious may call it good!

And in the world you grew up in, that might seem impossible, but the day is coming and the hour is approaching when that will no longer be the case. And the question is, have you heard the truth this morning, and what are you going to do about it? Have you heard the truth of God’s Word? Have you heard Christ’s promise that His children will suffer? Are you ready? Are you resolved? Don’t trip, beloved.

This morning, the altar is open. It is open to any and every heart that would come this morning, and say, Lord, Jesus I am counting the costs! I am counting the costs and I surrender. I surrender, and I will struggle and suffer whatever may come so that I can cling to Your Name. I am counting the costs, and I acknowledge that suffering for You is worth it. Lord, Jesus, to me You are worth it. To me You are worth it. And whether you have been in Christ for decades, or today you would belong to Him for the first time, right now is an hour of surrender. Jesus has called us to Himself today. What is He worth in your heart?

Let’s pray together: Lord, Jesus, I am here today to surrender. I surrender my desires. I surrender my sufferings. I surrender my life to you, Jesus. Lord, I hear Your call on my life, and I acknowledge that to be who You have called me to be is going to change everything about me. And I will gladly give everything to You just to be called Your own because I know that I have nothing without You. Lord, would You give me Your strength. Would You give me Your strength to stand when I am forced to endure the trials of those that would persecute me because of You. Would You give me assurance through my suffering that Your promises are true. Would You help me to look through the suffering to the life that will come to me through it, when I will forever be with You. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.